Another Friday has come and gone in Syria, and once again the nation was beset by massive pro-democracy protests, with tens of thousands of demonstrators rallying in major cities, defying official bans on demonstrations.
And as with the other protests, they were met by violence from the Assad regime. Reports from the ground are very tentative, but indicate that at least 62 protesters were killed over the course of the day. Dozens of others were confirmed wounded, and the toll of wounded is actually far higher.
The Assad government also reported that at least nine members of the nation’s security forces were killed while attempting to engage in the crackdown. The government termed the attackers “terrorist groups” but gave no indication of who they were. Officials said 156 were arrested in Daraa alone.
Syria has been facing growing protests since mid-March, with rallies after Friday prayers becoming a regular part of life. Though the Assad government has removed the “state of emergency” that was in place for half a century, they have continued to ban public demonstrations, and have increasingly used military forces to try to scare protesters off the streets. So far, this has not been successful, and the crackdowns have led to even bigger protests the following week.
Oh yeah and here we go again. Just about day after tomorrow, Dear Leader will be all up-in-a-huff and blustering loud and large for "humanitarian intervention."
And on the occasion of 'what if', well, what if "massive protests" were happening on the Homeland Amerika and the rabble were all manner of rude and/or obnoxious and you can bet the bacon that Dear Leader would call out the Marines, gather the State Security Apparatus equipped in that 'goon squad' regalia, and crack skulls. Of course any Obama skull cracking would be "humane." Of course.
It is hard to not to be on the side of the protesters in Syria. Here are people putting thier life on the line to protest against a brutal and corrupt government. These people have more guts in thier little pinky finger than the likes of Lieberman and Graham have in thier entire body. Having said that, the US government needs to keep its nose out of the domestic affairs of Syria. The last thing the protesters need in Syria is to be portrayed as stooges for the American government. Assad and his brutal dictatorship is a problem for the Syrian people to solve without any outside interference.
amaerican allowed and put in place the current gov't. wake up dumb ass, the USA is resposible for what does on their
Over the years I have become somewhat wary of such words as ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’. Are these words synonymous with US/western hegemony ? Looking for instance at Iraq and possibly other ME western alligned countries, we know what that means.
What keeps me puzzled is what influence could the the current ‘wind of change’ blowing through the Arab world and the subsequent changes of regimes in those countries (in particular a regime change in Syria) have on the Israeli/ Palestinian relation ? Would Israel gain by it ? Not as far as I can see from Egypt which is contemplating opening the borders to the Gaza strip. However it could well be that uprisings in other Arab countries are currently being hyjacked by the US/Nato (Israeli ?) Aliance, which could well be the case in Lybia. I would appreciate some comments and thoughts on this topic.
What influence would the uprisings and subsequent regime changes have on the Israeli/Palestian conflict. Would Israel gain by it or not ?
I did sent a comment before in a somewhat similar vein. However it was not shown. What was wrong with it ?
So because an Israeli news outlet says 60 have ben killed, it is reported as truth?
Get a grip and study traditional journalism for fuck’s sake. Haaretz is not a reliable source on events in Syria. And to blindly re-report this as fact is unconscionable.